Canada’s Sex Quest game sets young people on a mission for sexual information

Educators have always been torn about how best to commit to teen sex education, whether it's through classes or after-school informational sessions, but the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC) has decided to try an innovative, new way to reach out to young people with information – a video game.

Sex Quest is available for free on Facebook and combines entertainment with education in an attempt to help keep gamers engaged. Players start off as peasants and can ascend the ranks to royalty by answering trivia questions about sexual health. They can move up the ranks to eventually become a duke or duchess, baron or baroness, king or queen.

"Sex Quest is a trivia game about a topic that is anything but trivial. Sex can and should be a positive experience. So should learning about healthy sexuality," Dr. Amanda Black of Ottawa General Hospital said in a statement.

The project was released shortly after a new survey revealed that almost 40 percent of young Canadians said that the internet was a more useful resource for sex facts and condom FAQs than their own parents. Around a quarter said the same about their school sex-ed classes. Around 60 percent said that they didn't know the age of consent in Canada.

Sex Quest isn't the SOGC's only foray into the digital world. It has opened up Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts to better connect to people who are in need of information. This all comes on the heels of their original, award-winning website.

This kind of interactive learning tool could prove to be useful in the United States, where many young adults find that they lack the information they need to make informed decisions, whether it's how to use a condom or ways to prevent STDs.